Danièle Lebrun is a renowned French stage actress who has enjoyed a six-decade-long career, marked by numerous critically acclaimed performances in both classical and modern plays. Her journey in the world of acting began when her brother, the philosopher Gérard Lebrun, introduced her to director Claude Autant-Lara, who although deemed her too young for his film, encouraged her to pursue her acting ambitions.
Lebrun soon made her theatrical debut in Arthur Miller's The Crucible at the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt, under the direction of Raymond Rouleau. She then studied drama at the Conservatoire, winning first prize for acting and subsequently joining the Comédie-Française for two years. Throughout her career, she has acted in numerous classic plays by Molière, Pirandello, Chekhov, Shakespeare, and others, earning a Critics Union Award in 1976 for her role in Madame de Sade and two Molière Awards for her performances in Le Misanthrope and Pygmalion.
Despite being infrequently on the screen during the 1960s, Lebrun had her first leading role at the end of the decade as Grushenka in a French TV version of Les frères Karamazov. Since the 1970s, she has become a beloved figure in literary adaptations and period dramas, playing notable roles such as Baronness Roxane de Saint-Gély in Les nouvelles aventures de Vidocq and in the title role of Bérénice, queen of Judaea, based on a tragedy by Jean Racine.
Lebrun has also portrayed Empress Josephine, Napoleon Bonaparte's first wife, in the biopic Joséphine ou la comédie des ambitions, and Napoleon's mother Maria-Letizia Bonaparte in the comedy Madame Sans-Gêne. More recently, she has appeared in a two-part miniseries, Madame Cuchet, as the wife of Charles de Gaulle, and in Les vieux calibres, as Emilienne, one of a quartet of pensioners trying to recapture the adventures of their youth.
In her personal life, Lebrun was married twice, first to journalist François de Closets and then to film maker Marcel Bluwal, with whom she often collaborated on screen projects. Bluwal passed away in 2021.
